Google Power Tools Bible

Creating your own Web page is fun and can be very useful for communicating with friends, associates, or complete strangers around the world. Your Web page is your “home on the Internet” that people can visit to learn more about you. To get started using Google Page Creator, point your Web browser to http://pages.google.com.

Note 

You need both a Google account and a Gmail account to use Page Creator.

You are asked to log in to your Google account when you visit http://pages.google.com. The first time you log in, select the check box in the lower left that affirms that you agree to the terms and conditions and then click I’m ready to create my pages or the I’m ready to create my pages link in the upper-right corner of the page to get started using Page Creator.

The page editor appears showing you the default page layout, as shown in Figure 23.1. This list shows the different editing features you find on the Page Creator Edit page:

Figure 23.1: The Edit page is where you create or edit Web pages.

Begin creating your Web page by adding a page title. Your page title can be anything such as your name, your business name, My Home Page, or anything you want in big bold letters at the top of your Web page. Don’t worry about saving your page. Google saves your page automatically every few moments. You can, however, choose to save your page immediately by clicking the save now link in the upper right of the Edit page. Google lets you know the exact time of its last auto-save.

Creating the page look and layout

You can begin creating your Web page using the default design or choose a different layout, and you can change it later if you like. It’s usually best to create the page in the layout you want it published in, so you can preview it as you create it. Sometimes, changing the appearance of the page after you create it is difficult.

See Figure 23.3 to see the different layouts you can choose from. The first and default layout is great for single Web pages. But if you want to include any type of navigation between the Web pages on your site, you may want to choose any of the other layouts. For example, the second and third layouts allow you to select smaller columns on either the left or right, which are perfect for putting links to your other pages, thus creating a menu. The editor even tells you that the sidebar is a great place to link to any other pages you create.

Figure 23.3: Begin editing in any layout you want, but remember that you can change it later.

The three-column layout is great for creating online newsletters. Text you type in each column automatically wraps around, creating a “newspaper” effect.

Add gadgets

Many people have created third-party gadgets. Google has many gadgets you can add to your Web page, so visitors to your page find interesting and useful features. Click the add gadget link at the bottom of the page to add gadgets to your page. You may receive a warning like the one shown in Figure 23.4. Click OK to continue adding the gadget.

Figure 23.4: Google warns you when you are about to add gadgets not supported by Google.

Creating a Menu

On Web pages, menus are normally links to other pages. These can be pages you create on your Web site or links to other Web pages on the Internet. For example, you can create a menu of favorite sites and include links to all your favorite Web addresses.

Menus can be either horizontal (a bar across the top of the page) or vertical (listing menu items in a vertical column down one side of the page). Generally, horizontal menus are used for linking to pages on your own Web site. Vertical menus may include links to your own pages or other pages on the Web. When creating a vertical menu, choosing a layout with a sidebar on either the left or right side of the page is your best option.

To begin creating your menu, position your mouse pointer to the place you’d like the first menu item to appear and click the Link button found in the Page Creator menu on the left. Choose where you want your menu item to link - one of your pages, a file you’ve uploaded, another page on the Web, or an e-mail address - which is great for creating a contact menu choice.

When you select Your pages, a list of the Web pages you’ve created appears. Type the text you want displayed in your menu selection in the box at the top, and click OK to continue. To create the next menu item, press Enter to move to the next line, or position your mouse at the place where you want the next item to appear and add another link.

When creating a horizontal menu, do not press Enter. Most horizontal menus have a separator between the choices. You can use the vertical line (also known as the pipe) symbol (|) to separate your menu choices. After creating each link, add the | symbol (found above the \ symbol on most keyboards).

After the last menu choice in your horizontal menu, do not add a | symbol. You’ll notice that horizontal menus do not allow you to add many links or long menu descriptions.

You may want to consider changing the font of the menu selections and possibly make them bold to stand out from the other text on your Web page.

Figure 23.5: Add one or more gadgets to your Web page to add fun and functionality.

As the warning says, many gadgets require setup. Some, like the Wikipedia search box gadget, only require that you select a language for your search box.

You can click and drag your gadget to a new location on the page. Click the gadget while editing your page, and a blue box appears below your gadget that allows you to edit the gadget’s preferences or remove the gadget completely from the page. Click Edit to access the preferences, or click Remove Gadget to remove it from your page.

Adding page elements

You can add several kinds of things to your Web page using Page Creator, including text, links, and images.

To add text, simply click in the area of the page where you want text to appear and begin typing. You can format this text in a number of ways. You can click one of the text formatting buttons in the Page Creator menu, type your text, and then click the button again to turn off that formatting feature. You also can type text, highlight the text by dragging across it with your mouse, and then click the formatting button once.

The text formatting buttons include b for bold text and i for italics. You also can choose a new font for your text by clicking the f button and choosing a font from the list. The fonts that appear in the list are those that normally appear on all computers. When computers do not have a font that appears in the list, the text appears in the viewer’s default browser text font.

Change the text color from its default black by clicking the T button that appears with a small color palette. Again, you can click the button, select a color, type the text, and then click the button again to change the font to a different color, or you can highlight text you’ve already typed and select a new color for it.

When you want to change the size of your text, you can click the double T button and select a font size: Small, Normal, Large, or Huge. The default size is Normal. You also can change the size of the font by identifying it as a heading, subheading, or minor heading. It’s best to use heading formats for true headings rather than using them to change font sizes within a page.

Add links - clickable text that launches another page - by clicking the Link button. You are prompted to type the text you want to appear on the page and then prompted to specify the type of link you want added. These are your choices:

You can test the link before you add it to make certain that it actually links to another page. Links that do not work are called dead links. You don’t want dead links on your page. Nothing makes a person move from your page faster than encountering a dead link.

You can add images to your page, whether it’s a picture of your smiling face, a candid shot of your favorite pet, vacation photos, or possibly pictures of a logo and products for your business. Click Image to add an image. In the dialog box that appears, you are asked whether the image is one you uploaded previously, one you’d like to upload now, or an image that exists somewhere on the Internet that you want to appear on your page.

Caution 

When linking to images on the Internet, make certain that you are not violating someone else’s copyright.

Changing your page layout

Making Web pages is a creative process, and that sometimes means changing your mind. The Undo and Redo links allow you to step backward and forward through your edits. For example, changing the font and making text bold is a two-step process. If you changed your mind, you can click the Undo link. Each time you click Undo, you step back to the previous edit. You can continue clicking Undo until you arrive at the point where your page was either last published or no other changes can be undone. After that, Undo is no longer active (clickable).

If you undo a change and want to change it back again, simply click the Redo link. Redo steps forward through your edits. Redo is active (clickable) only when you have first clicked Undo one or more times.

Follow these steps to get rid of all your changes in the fastest manner:

  1. Click the <<Back to Page Manager link at the top of the Edit page.

  2. Select the page where you want all the changes discarded by selecting the check box.

  3. Select Discard unpublished changes from the More actions drop-down list.

This action returns your page to its previously published (or never before published) state.

Editing your page’s HTML

When you want to edit the underlying HTML code for your Web page, click the Edit HTML link in the lower-right portion of the Edit page. Working with HTML is not difficult, but does take a little bit of time and patience. One of the advantages is that you can add Web features that are not currently available using Page Creator, including these:

Some excellent HTML tutorials are available on the Web. You can find a fairly complete, free resource at www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp.

Clicking the Edit HTML link opens a new window that displays the HTML in an editor. Follow these steps to edit the HTML of your Web page:

  1. Make changes by typing HTML commands in the editor.

  2. Test your changes by previewing them.

  3. Click the Preview link/radio button in the tab found in the top-right corner of the HTML editor window. You can switch back and forth by clicking either the HTML or the Preview tabs.

  4. Close the editor and switch back to the graphic version by clicking Save Changes at the bottom of the HTML editor window.

  5. To exit without saving any of your changes, click Cancel. The window closes and returns you to the main Page Creator window.

Creating new pages

When you start Page Creator, you create or edit your “home” page. This is the page that people normally first see when visiting your Web site. You can create other Web pages that can appear on your site, but you can only have a single home page.

There are two places within Page Creator that allow you to create new pages. A Create new page link is at the top left of any Edit page. You also can click the Create a new page link in Page Manager.

When you create the new page from either Page Manager or from the Edit page, a text box appears asking you to type the title of the new page (see Figure 23.6). Type a title for the new page, and then click Create and Edit.

Figure 23.6: Enter a title for your page. Google will automatically remove spaces from your title to create a filename.

Your new page is created with the title filled in. The new page is in the same color scheme and layout as your home page. You can change the layout and look (color scheme) of this page without changing the layout and look of all your pages. Generally, you may want to keep the same color scheme throughout your Web site, and sometimes even the layout. Keeping the same look and feel can make a Web site easier to navigate and makes it more visually pleasing to your site’s visitors. Your new page is ready for editing.

When you create new pages, you have a choice about how people navigate to the new page. If you want people to move to the new page from your home page, place a link to the new page on your home page. You can create this link in the form of a menu, but placing a link anywhere on the page works just as well.

Tip 

Web crawlers (programs used by search engines) index your site by starting at the home page and following all the links. Pages on your site not linked to the home page may not be indexed by Google or other search engines.

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